GOProud Hub

Amazing what can change over a weekend. Just last Friday we were telling you how the Log Cabin Republicans had been denied participation - yet again - in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. According to Edge Boston today, however, that stance has been reversed and not only have the LCRs been allowed to attend, but have even been invited to speak on a panel titled "Putin's Russia: A New Cold War?" and will take place this Saturday, February 28th at noon.

Among the many right-wing luminaries scheduled to speak at this year's CPAC are: Sam Brownback, the pig farmer turned governor of Kansas who recently stripped LGBT state workers of employment non-discrimination protections, Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon turned professional Obamacare basher who compares marriage equality advocates to supporters of bestiality and pedophiles, and half-term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin who is well, Sarah Palin.

The only way the party will change is when that change starts coming from within. One has to offer a certain amount of respect to a group that's willing to meet with the fanatical dogmatic lunatics that comprise far too much of the Republican Party and threaten to rot it completely from the inside out when the rest of us would rather - and justifiably so - completely wash our hands of them.

GOProud was never, ever, ever - like, seriously? omgwtflolno - going to affect any kind of positive change within the Republican Party, so quixotic as it may be, here's hoping that LCR getting their foot in the door is something that helps eventually move the GOP to a party of educated politicians from the circus of crazy-eyed, dominionistic, hateful, paranoid nutbags that it has become.

GOProud, the Tea Party-esque vanity project of founders Christopher Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia for self-destructive homos, fell apart this year after it was unable to compensate for the loss of its largest donor Paul Singer and both of its founders left the organization.

According to a piece at The Daily Beast, it seems that the problems actually begain much earlier and that GOProud was effectively done and over with a year ago. According to now-owner Matt Bechstein,

There was donor discontent, the organization was broke, they were having difficulty raising money, and they ruined just about every relationship possible.

Sounds about right for an organization that found a "strong ally" in Ann Coulter.

Incumbent U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) has a zero rating from the Human Rights Campaign for his record on LGBT related issues. But in today’s primary, the Family Research Council announced its endorsement over the weekend for Cochran’s challenger, Mississippi State Tea Party Senator Chris McDaniel, citing McDaniel’s strong stance against same-sex couples marrying. Seems zero wasn’t good enough.

ANOTHER REQUEST TO LEAP FROG:

Idaho filed a petition with the Ninth Circuit May 30, asking to skip over the three-judge panel phase of appeal in defense of its state ban on same-sex couples marrying. Less than two months ago, the Sixth Circuit refused Michigan’s request to do the same. But Idaho says the intra-circuit conflict over the proper level of judicial scrutiny to apply when evaluating laws that affect LGBT people adversely is a question of “exceptional importance.” Even more important, it argues, is the conflict over laws banning same-sex couples from marrying. Americans “understandably want the Marriage Issue resolved now,” states the brief. The Ninth Circuit is one of five circuits with active cases before them concerning statewide bans; only two –the Fourth and Tenth— have heard arguments before a three-judge panel.

GOPROUD CONSIDERS REORGANIZATION:

The gay conservative group GOProud reacted to rumors Monday that it was “shutting down.” Not so, said Matthew Bechstein, the group’s new executive director, in a press release. Bechstein said the group, which recently saw its founding members abandon ship, is considering reorganization to a “different legal type of organization.” “But if it were to actually happen,” said Bechstein, “it would only be momentary and certainly not the end of our organization.”

GLAD SUES BAYER:

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders announced Monday that it filed suit in federal court last month in Connecticut against the company that produces Bayer aspirin. The lawsuit, Passaro v. Bayer, was brought on behalf of Gerald Passaro, whose husband was a chemist at Bayer until his death in 2009. Bayer initially refused to pay Passaro the survivor benefit, saying that, under the Defense of Marriage Act, it had no obligation to. But after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA last June, the company continued to refuse to pay the benefit, governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

NOTABLE QUOTE:

GLAD civil rights director Mary Bonauto in USA Today article about the string of federal court victories striking down bans on same-sex couples marrying: “We're at a point where it would be shocking if the Supreme Court said it was permissible to deny marriage licenses to gay couples."

GILL FUNDING PARK SERVICE STUDY:

The Gill Foundation is providing $250,000 to fund the LGBT historic places study announced by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell last Friday. The National Park Service will host a meeting in Washington, D.C., June 10 “to develop a framework and focus for the LGBT theme study with a group of more than a dozen of the nation’s most respected researchers and preservationists who have expertise on LGBT history and culture.”

DEMAIO’S OFFICE VANDALIZED:

Campaign staff for gay Republican Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio found their San Diego office vandalized last week. A campaign spokesperson told Associated Press that staff believe it is related to DeMaio’s efforts to curb pension costs.

AIDS LISTENING:

The White House Office of National AIDS Policy last Thursday hosted the first of three public “listening sessions” in southern states. The Office’s new director, Douglas Brooks, is leading the sessions, which started in Jackson, Mississippi. The next sessions are slated for Columbia, S.C., today and Atlanta, June 5. RSVP.

“Last night I resigned from the Board of GOProud, the organization that I co-founded back in April of 2009. I cannot in good conscience sit by and watch as the current leadership of the organization disingenuously pawns off an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry as some sort of ‘compromise,’” Barron told BuzzFeed. “Nothing has changed in regards to GOProud and CPAC, GOProud does not have a booth, they are not a sponsor, they are not participating in any formal sense – individual members can attend and that’s exactly the terms ACU dictated the previous few years.”

Two former GOProud summer interns, Ross Hemminger and Matt Bechstein, took over last summer and sought to repair the bitterly frayed relationship. Under a compromise reached last week, they will attend the March 6-8 gathering as guests, without sponsorship or a booth. GOProud sees the lower-profile role as an important first step.

"We really just want to be part of the conservative movement," said Hemminger, a veteran of the losing Senate campaigns by Scott Brown and Gabriel Gomez in Massachusetts. "We want to establish a fruitful and respectful relationship."

Dan Schneider, executive director of the ACU, praised the GOProud directors for their "new vision" of promoting conservative principles from gun rights to opposition to abortion.

"We welcome GOProud's attendance at this year's CPAC conference," Schneider said in an e-mail. "I believe their presence could help establish a productive relationship in the future."

Now that he's abandoned the Republican party, GOProud founder Jimmy LaSalvia is airing all of his grievances with the party that banned his group from CPAC in an interview with Michelangelo Signorile. He doesn't say anything that people on the left haven't been saying for YEARS - the GOP has been hijacked by a loud, powerful minority; they're unwilling to lose a small number of fringe voters to gain "multitudes"; the party has no backbone - but it's cathartic to hear someone who was once one of the party's major cheerleaders finally get a clue.

LaSalvia actually had some rather scathing remarks about the GOP, such as comparing them to drug addicts who know they have a problem but can't kick it, or saying that they have a cultural disease that can't be fixed. He even recalled a rather telling moment during a conversation with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus when Priebus said, in regards to whatever they were talking about, "I can't do that, I'll get a call from Tony Perkins."